Thailand confirms 2 kids are sick with lethal bird flu

Washington Post

Published
4:00 am PST, Saturday, January 24, 2004

2004-01-24 04:00:00 PDT Bangkok -- Thailand confirmed Friday that two children are sick with a highly lethal bird flu that has infected chickens in at least six East Asian countries, heightening concern that an epidemic among humans could break out in the area.

A chicken butcher who was also being tested for the virus died of an infection, Thai health officials said, but it was unclear whether he had contracted bird flu. Thai officials also reported for the first time Friday that some of the country's poultry were infected.

Although the death toll from the virus climbed to six in Vietnam today, health officials said this strain of avian flu can be spread to people only through contact with poultry and their immediate environment, not from one person to another.

But the World Health Organization warned this week that the disease could pose a greater threat than the SARS epidemic, which killed nearly 800 people last year, if governments do not move aggressively to contain the virus before it mutates into a form more readily passed among humans.

Thai Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan told reporters that two boys, ages 6 and 7, from different provinces west of Bangkok, have tested positive for bird flu. She said they contracted it by playing with chickens. Both were in critical but stable condition. Two other possible cases are being monitored.

The government statements came after Thai officials had denied in recent weeks that there was an outbreak of avian flu, instead blaming the widespread death of chickens over the last two months on fowl cholera, which poses little danger to humans.

But reports circulated this week that bird flu, already reported among poultry in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, had spread to Thailand, prompting Japan on Thursday to ban imports of Thai chicken. The European Union followed suit Friday, dealing a serious blow to the Thai economy. Thailand is the world's fourth-largest chicken producer, earning more than $1 billion a year from exports; hundreds of thousands of Thais are estimated to work on 30, 000 poultry farms and in related industries.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, meanwhile, reported Friday that tests on dead chickens from Cambodia confirmed that bird flu also has spread to that country. The tests were conducted in France at the request of the Cambodian government, which a U.N. official said has asked for advice in containing the disease.